EVALUATING GOOGLE CLASSROOM

IN TEACHING AND LEARNING WRITING

Tran Thi Mai

HCMC University of Technology (HCMUT)
Vietnam

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HCMC University of Technology

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 PRESENTATION OUTLINE

1. INTRODUCTION 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 3. RESEARCH METHODS

Background information Brief review of relevant Information about
about the project, books, articles & other participants, materials used,
including research resources design, procedures & data
hypothesis sources

4. DATA ANALYSIS
Data in form of charts and
tables, and analysis of
data
5. CONCLUSION &
IMPLICATIONS 6. REFERENCES
Conclusion drawn from List of key references of
data analysis and the research
implications for future
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 INTRODUCTION
PROBLEM STATEMENT:
• Writing skills are crucial for students when studying at school and
after graduating.
• In “The Foreign language Teaching and Learning Proposal towards
2020” of Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training, graduates must
get B1 level in CEFR.
• Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT) requires a
minimum score of 200 in TOEIC Speaking & Writing.
• Many problems with teaching and learning writing at universities:
large classes, students’ unequal English competence, outdated
teaching approaches, short course length.
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 INTRODUCTION
SOLUTIONS:
• Schools employ technology in supporting physical classes (e-learning,
online courses)
• The ELT online course is restricted in interactions, so it does not support
teaching and learning Writing.
• Google Classroom seemed to provide potential solutions to the problems
because of the following characteristics:
Be free for everyone
Support multi-way interactions (teacher – student, student – student)
Allow comments, feedbacks and content contribution among users
Send notifications to users’ email addresses
Be user-friendly

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 INTRODUCTION

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS:

“ After students in Experimental group attend a virtual

classroom on Google besides normal class, their outcomes
and engagement in writing will be higher than students in
Control group who only study in physical class with teacher.
”
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 LITERATURE REVIEW
ABOUT GOOGLE CLASSROOM:
• Debuted in May 2014 by Google, included in G-Suite for Education
• Available for personal accounts since March 2017
• Now free for anyone
FEATURES:
• Go to: http://www.classroom.google.com
• Click on “Create” -> add class name and descriptions
• Invite students to join class
• Create announcements, assignments and questions
• Share resources, assign writing tasks, collect homework, give
comments, grade students and return papers to them
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 LITERATURE REVIEW
WHAT WORKS WELL WITH GOOGLE CLASSROOM?

Microsoft Word
Google Document
Drive Google Docs
 Type directly on the file created
by teacher
 Allow adding comments, editing
and sharing the documents
 Use cloud computing, no need to
Google Form Youtube and save files
upload, download
on personal computer
…
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 LITERATURE REVIEW
GOOGLE CLASSROOM IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING:
• Google Classroom is responsive design and can run on any device resolutions.
“Mobile access to learning materials that are attractive and easy to interact
with is critical in today’s web connected learning environments”. (Janzen, 2004)
• Google Classroom was proved to be extremely useful in collaborative learning.
(Randy, Karen, Jasmine, Christian, and Nieva, 2018)
• Google Classroom motivated and encouraged students in writing because they
could reach a wider audience. (MacArthur, 2009)
• Google Classroom encouraged writing and editing since students did not have
to recopy their work. (MacArthur, 2009)
• Besides being able to give instructions and share writing prompts as well as
other additional resources, teachers can send students’ comments and
feedbacks through Google Classroom promptly, which may significantly
contributed to the outcomes of their writing classes. (Izenstark & Leahy, 2015).
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 RESEARCH METHODS
1. PARTICIPANTS: 63 seniors from different majors at HCMUT

Random 30 samples in
41 male students Experimental Group
design

33 in Control Group
22 female students
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 RESEARCH METHODS

2. MATERIALS:
• A TOEIC Writing class was created on Google Classroom, and students
in experimental group were enrolled in this class.
• A mock TOEIC Writing test with all 8 questions was given to both
groups at the end of the course.
• A questionnaire using Google Form was sent to students to fill in.
• Interviews followed up the findings of the experimental research.

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 RESEARCH METHODS

3. DESIGN: This research was a mix of quantitative and qualitative design:

1. Quantitative method: Experimental design
In this design, four variables were:
• Independent variable: the use of Google Classroom.
• Dependent variable: the scores of students on the mock test
• Control variables: textbook, time and duration of classes, and the mock
test
• Extraneous variable: the various students’ English proficiency

2. Quanlitative method: Questionnaire & Qualitative interviews

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 RESEARCH METHODS
4. PROCEDURE
Experimental Group:
POST THE FIRST SHARE CREATE MARK STUDENT’S
INFORM EXPERIMENTAL
ANNOUNCEMENTS RELEVANT ASSIGNMENTS & WORK & GIVE
GROUP OF GOOGLE
ABOUT WHAT TO MATERIALS IN ASK STUDENTS COMMENTS
CLASSROOM, GIVE
PREPARE FOR THE FORMS OF TO DO ON DIRECTLY ON
STUDENTS CLASS CODE &
NEXT CLASS ON LINKS, DOCS… GOOGLE DOCS. GOOGLE DOCS, GIVE
INSTRUCTION TO ACCESS
GOOGLE ON GOOGLE SET DUE DATE IF MARKS AND RETURN
TO GOOGLE CLASS
CLASSROOM CLASSROOM AVAILABLE. PAPER TO STUDENTS

Control Group:
MARK STUDENT’S
SHARE ASK STUDENTS WORK & GIVE
RELEVANT TO WRITE COMMENTS ON
MATERIALS THEIR PAPERS, GIVE
ASSIGNMENTS MARKS AND RETURN
IN FORMS OF ON PAPER PAPER TO STUDENTS
HARD COPIES
IN THE NEXT CLASS
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 RESEARCH METHODS
5. DATA SOURCES ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRE:
6 close-ended questions
By Google Form, students
MOCK TEST fill in directly on Google
(TOEIC FORMAT) Form
8 QUESTIONS/ 1 hour
Questions 1-5: Picture
Description DATA
Questions 6+7: Responding INTERVIEW:
to email 3 open-ended questions
Question 8: Writing essay 5 students interviewed,
each in 5 minutes

For both Experimental For Experimental Group

Group and Control Group only

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 DATA ANALYSIS
POST-TEST SCORES:

Experimental Group's Scores Distribution Control Group's Score

Distribution
Scores

50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 More 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 More

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 DATA ANALYSIS
POST-TEST SCORES:
Results of T-test and Descriptive Statistics for Writing Scores between Experimental
Group and Control Group
  Experimental Group Control Group
Sample size (n) 30 33
Mean (M) 95.166 83.672
Variance (s2) 362.902 365.672
Standard Deviation (s) 19.049 19.122
  t Statistic t Critical one-tailed
  1.671 1.670
  Calculated Probability (p) Confidence Interval
  0.049 0.05

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 DATA ANALYSIS
ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS:
Question Results
1. Do you feel comfortable working 1. Yes 80%
with Google Classroom? 2. No 20%
1. Create and receive announcements 10%
2. Access to links shared by teacher 25%
2. Choose the feature
3. Do assignment and get teacher's 60%
of Google Classroom that is most
comments on Google Docs
beneficial to you.
4. Communicate with other students 5%
in the class
3. Are you willing to share your 1. Yes 60%
writing with your classmates? 2. No 40%
1. Always 10%
4. How often do you comment on
2. Sometimes 30%
teacher's or classmates' posts?
3. Never 60%
5. Do you feel encouraged in your
1. Yes 75%
writing learning with the support of
2. No 25%
Google Classroom?
6. Do you want to continue using
Google Classroom to receive 1. Yes 83%
teacher's supports after the course 2. No 17%
ends?

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 DATA ANALYSIS
SUMMARY OF INTERVIEWS
Question 1. How did Google Classroom benefit your writing learning?
Student 1 said Google classroom made the access to the various materials on the
internet easier by clicking on the links. He was too lazy to find those materials
himself.
Meanwhile, student 2 thought writing on paper was frustrating for him since he
usually had difficulties with spelling. Writing an essay by Word processor or Google
Docs was much easier because there was auto spell check.
According to student 3, because Google Classroom automatically sent all
notifications to his email address, and the Calendar feature showed all the
upcoming events and duties that he needed to fulfill, he was notified of important
announcements and deadlines and could stay disciplined in his learning.
Student 4 and 5 both said that they worked with their computer all the time, so a
virtual classroom with cloud storage was more practical and convenient for them to
access to, keep and manage all the files in the long run. 18
 DATA ANALYSIS
SUMMARY OF INTERVIEWS
Question 2. Why didn’t you post comments on Google Classroom?
Interestingly, four out of five students said that they were so busy
with their dissertations that they did not want to waste their time on
anything except for teacher’s comments and suggestions, which could
help improve their writing skills.
One student said he did not know his classmates well, so he did not
feel comfortable chatting to them.

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 DATA ANALYSIS
SUMMARY OF INTERVIEWS
Question 3. What function of Google Classroom do you want to use
more?
Student 1, 2 and 4 wanted teacher to share more videos of writing
instructions, in addition to Word and PDF documents.
Student 3 said that classmates did not actually connect to each other,
and hoped to hace more pair work and group work using Google
Classroom to create a more constructive learning community.
Student 5 gave no response to this question.

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 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
CONCLUSION OF THE RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
• The mock test results between two groups using independent
samples t-test with the parameters proved that the scores of the
experimental group were statistically higher than those of the
control group.
• The quantitative close-ended questionnaire indicated that Google
Classroom engaged a majority of students in learning writing.
• The qualitative analysis of the interview sessions strengthened this
conclusion when all participants easily gave their explanations of
how Google Classroom facilitated their writing.

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 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHERS
• Google Classroom is perfectly feasible and user-friendly, so both teachers
and students do not have difficulty getting used to it.
• Technology just plays a supportive part, and teacher should be responsive
to students’ activities.
• The interactions on Google Classroom should not be restricted to teachers
and students, but interactions among classmates should be promoted.
• There are other features of Google Classroom that teachers should make
use of such as “co-teaching” function.
• Teachers should diversify the materials shared on Google Classroom:
videos, pictures, Word and Pdf documents.
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 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
IMPLICATIONS FOR STUDENTS
• The availability and accessibility of the Internet and various
technological devices only bring advantages if students use them
critically.
• While Google Classroom is a contributing factor, students’
autonomy is a decisive one that determines the outcomes of their
learning.
• Students should change their mindset about learning. Not only are
teachers those who give support, classmates are also potential
facilitators.

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 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
• Future research can be conducted with a bigger quantity of
samples. A pre-test is also necessary to ensure the equivalence of
control group and experimental group.
• Future research can look into the effects of Google Classroom on
not just university students, but a wider range of learners such as
junior and high school students. This will substantially contribute
to enhancing writing skills since earlier age.

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 REFERENCES
Create and manage class. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/topic/6163300?
hl=en&ref_topic=6020278
Iftakhar, S. (2016). Google Classroom: What works and how? Journal of Education
and Social Sciences, 3(2), 12-18. Retrieved from http://jesoc.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/03/KC3_35.pdf
Janzen, M. (2014). Hot Team: Google Classroom. Retrieved from
http://tlt.psu.edu/2014/12/04/hot-team-google-classroom
MacArthur, C. A. (2009). Reflections on Research on Writing and Technology for
Struggling Writers. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice , 24 (2), 93-103.
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